


the manner of things (in the dark)

by ComeBackToTheValley



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: (Saccharina and Gooey did not have happy childhoods), (occurs off-screen and is not described), Body Horror, Body Modification, Canonical Character Death, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Consensual Sex, Multi, more detailed content warnings in the notes, please check the tags on this one, the horror element of the eldritch genre is quite light but
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 00:35:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28804392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ComeBackToTheValley/pseuds/ComeBackToTheValley
Summary: Magic is an eldritch force.  The more you embrace it, the stranger and more inhuman you become.
Relationships: Gooey/Theobald Gumbar, Saccharina Frostwhip/Gooey (implied/referenced)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 21





	the manner of things (in the dark)

**Author's Note:**

> I've been reading quite a few eldritch horror fics lately, and thought I'd try my hand at it. Very much inspired by [jadeandquartz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jadeandquartz/pseuds/jadeandquartz) who writes such excellent eldritch A Crown of Candy fics (go check them out right now!)
> 
> Title from "Glitter and Gold" by Barns Courtney. There's an excellent ACOC animatic on YouTube with this song which has absolutely nothing to do with this fic, I just liked the line "Do you ponder the manner of things?/In the dark/The dark, the dark, the dark."
> 
> This is in the eldritch genre, and the entire premise of the fic is the various bodily changes that occur as a result of interacting with magic, so do be aware of that. The horror element is relatively light, but please read at your own caution. Ruby's grief after Jet's death is briefly explored, and may be distressing to some readers. If numbness in the context of grief is a difficult topic for you, please look after yourself first.
> 
> The implied/referenced child abuse references Saccharina and Gooey's childhoods, and discusses (but does not depict) a scene similar to what occurred in Saccharina's flashback in the show. The implied/referenced sex is in reference to the end scene of this fic with Gooey and Theo, in which they discuss some things in preparation for consensual sex, which is not described. Their conversation contains several innuendos and a discussion on safe words, but the scene ends before any smut occurs. The Mature rating is for safety. This is safe to read (with discretion) for teens, but if you are not comfortable with anything mentioned in the content warnings so far, please err on the side of caution and do not read.

The winds howl.

The seas rise.

And from the shattered, broken stones of the abbey, a girl stumbles out. Half her face is still burning, twisted in a rictus of agony from the searing amulet now lying cold and broken in a dead hand under a pile of rubble, and the force of the lashing wind pushes her back, back, back, but she is young and her shoulders are broad and there is one thing she knows above all.

She pushes her way against the wind, through the waves, and into the eye of the storm.

A hundred eyes look at her.

Or not. Maybe it just feels like she’s being watched on all sides, with eerie gazes that tear through her flesh and bone to flay her open and lay her bare. But there are no eyes, or at least, she can’t actually see them, and she’s always been imminently grounded. If she can’t see it, there’s no point believing in it. The nuns hadn’t liked that. It’s why her face is melting off her right now.

Here is what she does see.

Something, _someone_ , standing in the shallows, the waves cresting above them. 

There is a deafening, silent scream coming from a mouth that is too wide with too many sharp, pointed teeth.

Above, the heavy, dark clouds flash as an arc of blue-white lightning sprays down and sets the ruins of the abbey ablaze. For a moment, it illuminates the figure in the shallows, and-

Maybe it was a trick of the light. It came and went so quickly, before anything could really be seen.

Maybe.

Maybe for a moment, there was a jagged, flickering shadow, cast giant against the swell of the sea, with too many sharp, crooked limbs that crackle in and out of existence.

Maybe.

Here is what she feels.

Fear. An instinctual, terrible fear that tells her to run, run if she still can, run far away and hide and never see the sky again.

Awe. There is something beautiful in the terror, something alluring and inescapable in the mystery.

And love.

Here is what she says.

“Saccharina!”

and

“It’s me!”

and

“I’m not afraid.”

and

“Please let me come with you.”

Here is what she does not say.

“You are beautiful and terrible and they’re wrong, all of them, because what is their god except a monster and yet they still stand in awe of it, still cry out in adoration, and maybe that’s all a monster is, something that no one knows and so it is horrible and frightening and wondrous and sacred, but I know you and I would follow you to the ends of the earth because everything you are is everything I love and I love all of you, the beautiful terrible all of you.”

Here is what she does.

She steps up to the crying figure in the shallows and takes her hand, her flesh and bone hand, real, solid, tangible, and watches the last of that wretched abbey get washed into the endless sea.

* * *

Lapin walks through the halls of Castle Candy, head held high, a stack of Bulbian tracts and hagiographical accounts in his two, ordinary arms. Occasionally, he deigns to nod at a suitably important lord or lady. He even stops and engages in brief pleasantries with Calroy Crueller, King Amethar’s best friend and right hand man, and does not grit his teeth as he murmurs piously about unfortunately having to cut this conversation short because he must go and prepare this week’s sermon for the royal chapel.

He glides through the halls at a slow, if purposeful, pace. He’s had a long time to get used to the twitching, eager paws that want to run and flex and spark with magic, that barely stayed still under the volumes of his robe, that almost, almost! got him noticed by that buffoon, Sir Theobald Gumbar, at Queen Caramelinda’s thirty fifth birthday celebration. He has them under control now, thankfully. Most of the time. Lapin Cadbury has been smiling and lying and hiding for nearly his entire life now, and he’s gotten very good at it.

Fucking _Fairy._

Still, they do come in useful sometimes. When the princesses sneak out the window while they think he’s got his back turned and Princess Jet loses her footing on the liquorice trellis, he flutters one of his paws and she lands, far lighter than she should, on the ground without any serious injuries. When he’s forced to attend yet another Bulbian council of church leaders and Primogen Alfredi has been simpering on for a truly intolerable time, he amuses himself by telling her exactly what he thinks of her and all this using the hand signs of the northern folk. When first the Princess Ruby goes down, on top of the carriage, and then King Amethar, surrounded by bandits, everyone is just so relieved that he gets there in time that no one wonders exactly how an old chancellor can be so spry and lively.

And when young Liam Wilhelmina stands in front of that lout Sir Keradin Deeproot, clutching Peppermint Preston to his chest and looking so terribly frightened and alone, Lapin Cadbury steps forwards, unfolds all of his long, angled limbs, opens his paws glowing purple and plum, and gives the carrot a target that no holy paladin of the Church can resist.

* * *

There is something not quite _wrong_ about Cumulous Rocks.

By rights, there should be. No one’s eyes should look like that, although it’s generous to call them eyes. They’re sort of eyes, because they’re in the place on his face where eyes should be, and he seems to be able to see perfectly well enough, so they have to be eyes, right?

It’s not _nothing_ , everyone can agree on that. It looks like nothing sometimes, like there’s just a void in his sockets where his eyes should be, like there’s an empty, hungry darkness there that needs to be full, that needs to be filled. But also-

He cries, is the thing. And if he cries, there has to be something actually there, right? Tear ducts and shit like that. He definitely cries, is the thing, and if you look into his eyes, or what should be his eyes, it shouldn’t be possible, but there’s _something_ there, with the tears, something in those empty pits that’s not nothing, that’s real.

What is the dark, anyways, except faith and truth and the conviction of the soul? When all the wisdoms and the pretences of light are taken away, then all that is left is what is foolish and honest and real.

It should be frightening. It should be. It should be wrong. There can’t be something in nothing, that’s just nonsensical. It should be weird, it should be creepy, it should be shit-your-pants terrifying.

(Many cheese sailors and Muffinfield soldiers and Ceresian crusaders and Meatland mercenaries do shit themselves. They would probably shit themselves twice, except their desiccated bodies fall to the ground before they have time to empty their bowels again).

And it doesn’t makes sense, it doesn’t. It contradicts itself, something and nothing, it’s confusing and it’s time-wasting and why not just focus on what is here before you? There is a continent in uproar, a kingdom on fire, people are dying and there is no safety anywhere. It’s time to rise, time to fight, time to live and die and change the world.

But.

But it’s also real, and there are so many lies, so many deceptions all around, that the honesty of the emptiness is a relief, is a balm. He doesn’t lie, Cumulous, about what’s out there, doesn’t sugarcoat the truth in cloying sweetness. It’s comfort and it’s not, and maybe the fact that it’s both, that it hurts and that it doesn’t, makes it more real than all the syrupy smiles and the honeyed promises and the bitter bite of icy cold magic.

There is something warm in the dark, something gentle in the nothingness, something soft in the void. It’s something like peace and it’s something like comfort and it’s something like the relief of the certainty of the unknown.

There is something not quite wrong about Cumulous Rocks, and no one knows what to make of that.

* * *

When he was young, he used to ask Mom why there were vines growing out of her, real and wiggling vines, and where did the antlers come from, the ones that grew out of nowhere when she was making magic and then went away again even they were hard and bony and real, did they just come from her head and did it hurt and why were her feet hooves?

Mom would smile and let him sit on her lap and then she would tell him amazing stories, full of magic, about all the wonderful things she’d found in the woods when she was a young girl, the little sprites and spirits that lived all hidden away under tree roots and in hollow logs, that spent all day playing in the forest, and everything they touched would become magical too. And because she had spent so much time exploring and learning about all the fantastic magic they left behind, the magical spirits of the forest had decided that they better teach her properly about all of it.

“And when you start learning about magic, it changes you,” Mom would say, letting one of the vines curled around her arm unwind and tap him gently right on the nose “Magic is a very powerful thing, Liam, and it doesn’t like to hide. It wants everyone to know how wonderful it is.”

“If I learn magic, will I get magic vines on me too?” he would ask, wrinkling his nose. Magic sounded pretty awesome, but he wasn’t sure about having actual vines all over him.

“Hmm, I don’t know,” Mom would say, smiling at him “It’s different for everyone, honey. Maybe you will, or maybe you won’t. That’s the thing about magic, dear, it has a mind of its own. It doesn’t like to look the same in everyone, or what would be exciting about that?”

The first time he casts his very first spell —Preston eats a bad seed and starts feeling dizzy and he just wants to know what’s wrong with him— he runs to the nearest pool and spends ten minutes looking all over to see if anything’s changed, if he has got magic vines or maybe branches, those would be cool, and what about antlers? Just let Grash try and head-butt him now with a pair of wicked antlers on his head.

There’s nothing.

He tries not to be disappointed. Mom says she spent a long time learning magic before she started seeing the first little sprout. It was dumb to think that just because he knows, like, one spell now, he’d get anything cool his first time.

Then he goes to Castle Candy, to live as King Amethar’s hostage-ward person, and there’s no magic allowed, none. Even the forest here is ordinary, no magic spirits or plants or anything. Instead, he has to learn how to recite Bulbian psalms (boring) and kneel and bow his head in prayer (even more boring) and listen to super long sermons about the Bulb’s light from Chancellor Cadbury, who he’s pretty sure hates him.

(Lapin steps in front of the mace and pushes him back with the force of too many limbs, and even as he cries for Preston, he wonders how he could have gotten him so wrong).

He doesn’t notice, at first, how his eyes sharpen to the dark faster than they ever did before, how far, exactly, he can see into the gloom. He doesn’t notice how the shadows cling to his own when he steps out of a dark corner, how his enemies pale and don’t quite manage to make their blades connect with him. He doesn’t notice how quickly his ears prick up at the slightest sound, how everything smells crisper, clearer, how he opens his mouth and picks up a dozen different scents on the wind.

His back has been itching lately, this spot right on his spine, like there’s something inside scratching to come out.

It isn’t until they rescue Mom and Dad, and Mom sweeps him into one of her big, tight hugs, that her arms pat his back, pause, and then she puts both her hands on his shoulders and holds him out at arm’s length and looks him up and down.

“Oh my sweet baby,” she says softly “What have they done to you?”

When a paw, deep in the catacombs of the Sugar Plum Fairy’s temple, reaches out and pulls him into a plane that is neither living nor dead, he startles and yells and small skeletal wings of thinnest peppermint spring out from his back. They’re pretty tiny still, they don’t even open all the way out to his elbows yet and he definitely can’t fly with them, but they’re still super cool. They look kind of like bat wings, which are much cooler than antlers because he can maybe fly with them one day, if they get big enough. Mom thinks they might. Would that mean he has to sleep upside down though? He doesn’t know about that, although if he has to in order to fly, that’s a sacrifice he’s prepared to make.

This is awesome. Magic is so cool.

* * *

Ruby melts into the shadows and feels nothing and that’s all she’s ever going to have for the rest of her life and so it must be right.

She casts Mage Hand and tentacles of shadow crawl out from her and she can feel everything as they stretch around her, covering everything with phantom touches. The rugged cheese-wood of the ship, the dripping wax of the lantern, the smooth cheese slices of the sails. She feels everything in this moment and nothing and the only thing she can think of is how Jet will never feel anything ever again.

* * *

In the middle of the clean up, Gooey drags him off to the quarters that she’s claimed for herself, and tells him to take off his armour.

He hesitates.

“Are you sure I can’t just do something for you?” he offers weakly. Gooey squints at him.

“We got a problem here?” she says “I thought you wanted to get slammed down, big style.”

He swallows.

“I do,” he says “It’s just…”

“Just what?”

He winces. After a moment, he takes off his left gauntlet and shows her his paw.

Gooey looks at it for a long minute.

“So how many of those do you have?” she says at last “Are they all over?”

He nods.

“Two dozen,” he says “All over.”

Gooey hums.

“And that’s why you’re always clanking around in that full armour, huh?”

“Yes.”

Of all the things that Lazuli had warned him could happen, he’s relatively grateful that he got away with something so easy to hide under a good suit of plate armour. Lapin used to trip sometimes, from the extra paws, when no one was looking, and he feels guilty now about how amused he had been watching that. He’d been tempted so many times to use that information, especially when Lapin was being particularly snippy, but he’d never ended up doing it. How could he explain without exposing himself?

Anyways, if he’d done that, Liam would be dead today, along with the rest of them probably, so he’s glad he didn’t and he’s still a little guilty that he ever considered it in the first place.

“Are there any down there?” Gooey says, a little smirk on her face. He feels his face heating up.

“Ah, no.”

“Great,” Gooey says “No offence, that would be harder to work with.”

He blinks.

“So you still want to-“

“Hey,” Gooey shrugs “Everyone’s got something to work around. They sensitive? Do I need to be worried about accidentally blinding you or something?”

After a little bit of gaping, he finds his voice again.

“I mean, don’t poke them,” he says weakly “They’re not really- I mean, they’re here, they’re physical, but they’re also not really here. They don’t work like normal eyes. They kind of, they See on a different plane.”

“I figured it was something like that,” Gooey says dryly “So if I blindfold you, that doesn’t do anything, right?”

He’s momentarily distracted by the thought of being _blindfolded_ , and it takes a tremendous effort to get his thoughts back on track.

“I can close my eyes,” he offers “All of them, I mean.”

“Eh,” Gooey waves a hand “We’ll figure something out. Safe word’s catechism, ok?”

“Catechism?”

Gooey shudders.

“Quickest way to kill a mood I can think of,” she says “You got your word?”

“Ah,” he scrambles for something “Popsicle?”

“Great,” Gooey flashes him a thumbs up “Now, back to business. Get that armour off, squishy bear. We’re gonna make this happen.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on [tumblr!](https://thevalleyisjolly.tumblr.com)
> 
> The original [post and tag ramblings](https://thevalleyisjolly.tumblr.com/post/640419498497884160/a-crown-of-candy-where-everything-is-the-same-but) that sparked this fic in particular.


End file.
